Abstract: Digital servitization is a strategy that has received considerable attention from both the scholarly community and practitioners nowadays. However, research in this area remains fragmented and dispersed across different research streams. Currently, research on digital servitization is predominantly found in international journals focusing on operations management, marketing management, and strategic management. There is scarce literature from China that treats digital servitization as an independent concept; instead, it tends to embed digital servitization within research on digital transformation, hindering further in-depth exploration of digital servitization. Therefore, this article collects evidence from published international literature and uses econometric analysis tools as auxiliary means to elucidate the connotation of digital servitization, streamline its knowledge framework, explore its future research directions, and thereby construct an integrated theoretical framework.
Following a logic of “content analysis—research evolution—framework establishment”, this paper analyzes 227 documents in English on digital servitization sourced from Web of Science (2009—2022), yielding the following conclusions: First, existing research exhibits a broad understanding of the connotation of digital servitization without a widely accepted definition. This study identifies four core elements of digital servitization and defines it as the process by which manufacturing firms create or reconfigure service models through the use or embedding of digital technologies. Second, research on digital servitization has evolved with the gradual fusion of two research domains-digitalization and servitization. The first stage involved exploring the relationship between ICT and service innovation as independent concepts; the second stage advanced to analyzing digitalization and servitization as two independent yet interconnected concepts; the third stage focused on the concept of digital servitization itself. Third, this study summarizes five thematic research areas of digital servitization, namely context, capabilities, models, linkages, and outcomes, and proposes future research directions focusing on digital service ecosystem governance, the correlation between AI capabilities and digital servitization, the impact of data paradox on digital servitization, and value co-creation in digital servitization among multinational customers, service providers, and suppliers. Last, this paper constructs an integrated research framework where big data analytics capability acts as an antecedent, modular solution innovation serves as an intermediary mechanism, and customer/supplier/government involvement acts as boundary conditions, ultimately leading to the upgrading of servitized manufacturers as outcomes.
The theoretical contribution: firstly, it vividly portrays the gradual fusion process of digitalization and servitization, thereby enhancing the clarification of the research development trajectory of digital servitization and promoting the establishment of a specific research stream for digital servitization. Secondly, it identifies major themes of digital servitization and its future research directions to deepen the research on digital servitization. Thirdly, it establishes an integrated research framework for digital servitization“big data analytics capability—modular solution innovation—customer/supplier/government involvement—firm upgrade”,which can serve as an analytical basis or inspiration for future case studies or empirical research on digital servitization.

Key words: Digital Servitization, Connotation, Research Trajectory, Integrated Framework

摘要： 数字服务化是制造企业高质量发展的关键战略。然而,数字服务化文献呈零散状态,亟须明晰内涵、梳理脉络、识别未来方向和探索整合研究框架。本文按照内涵解析—研究演进—框架构建的逻辑,分析来源于Web of Science的数字服务化领域(2009—2022年)的227篇英文文献。研究发现:从内涵发展看,数字服务化尚未有统一界定,但可识别其内涵核心要素;从研究热点与理论演进看,数字服务化研究从关注ICT技术对企业服务创新的重要作用到剖析数字化在服务化中的作用,再到强调服务生态系统对数字服务化的重要性,理论视角从商业模式理论、价值共创理论向服务主导逻辑、服务生态系统视角演进;从研究主题看,现有研究主要围绕数字服务化情境、能力、模式、连结及结果五大主题。本文据此构建起“大数据分析能力—模块化解决方案创新—客户/供应商/政府参与—企业升级”的一个整合研究框架,为数字服务化未来研究提供借鉴与启示。

关键词: 数字服务化, 内涵解析, 研究演进, 整合框架